


trick mirror

by rime



Category: Persona 5
Genre: 2/2, Groundhog Day, M/M, akechi makes friends who aren't ren and it's instructive, groundhog month, groundhog something! something's going on here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:02:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29171547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rime/pseuds/rime
Summary: Akechi’s not one to deny the reality of his senses. And those senses have shown him many strange things of late. Human cats, for example, or dead men walking. But he’s still never imaginedrepeating a day.He retraces his steps from yesterday; the same drinks are sold out of the vending machines he passes. At 10:45 AM exact, as he’d recalled, the groupchat lights up:Haru: Is today the day we should expect to hear from Dr. Maruki?Makoto: That’s right.Makoto: Have you heard from him already, Ren?Goro Akechi is unstuck in time. (Minor canon divergence.)
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 30
Kudos: 178





	trick mirror

This wasn’t supposed to happen. 

“You’re serious,” Akechi says. Slowly, to make sure. “About the offer.”

Ren nods. He won’t meet his eyes. 

Akechi leaves. He walks at a brisk clip to his own apartment -- runs, actually -- slams the door, collapses on the futon, screws his eyes shut and wills himself to forget, forget, _forget_. When he wakes up from the sunbeams slanting through the blinds it’s morning. It’s also still February 2nd. 

  
  


-

  
  


How disorienting.

Akechi’s not one to deny the reality of his senses. And those senses have shown him many strange things of late. Human cats, for example, or dead men walking. But he’s still never imagined _repeating a day._ It seems absurd, but so does all of this, and who is he to really say what’s more or less absurd at this point. 

He retraces his steps from yesterday, which he supposes are just his steps from today. Everything goes just as yesterday had, right down to bumping into the same woman exiting the Aoyama-Itchome subway platform. The same drinks are sold out of the vending machines he passes. It’s a brilliant, cloudless day, and stepping out from the underpass into the harsh sunlight makes him sneeze just once, exactly like it had yesterday. 

The students ambling by are having the same conversations they were, babbling about grades and student nonsense. None of it’s about him. In another life he might have cared, but there’s no time now, what with a mad doctor overwriting the cognition of the masses and soon enough _his_ if he isn’t careful. Akechi leans against the Shujin gates, frowning down at his phone. If this is really happening, then -- yes, there. 

At 10:45 AM exact, as he’d recalled, the groupchat lights up: 

  
  
  


_Haru: Is today the day we should expect to hear from Dr. Maruki?_

_Makoto: That’s right._

_Makoto: Have you heard from him already, Ren?_

  
  
  


Not yet, he hasn’t.

  
  
  


_Ren: not yet i haven’t_

_Makoto: We should be careful. Try to be ready for anything._

_Ryuji: whats the big deal? aint we gonna smash his face in same as always?_

_Ann: I mean, yeah, but…_

_Yusuke: Maruki is quite unusual compared to our previous opponents. I feel that he may try something, perhaps with Ren._

_Makoto: Yusuke’s right. We should all be on our guard today, Ren in particular. Be ready for anything, Ren._

_Ren: i will_

  
He won’t, though. Akechi finds out the hard way.  
  


-

  
  


Waking up on the 2nd again shouldn’t be surprising, but it is. Akechi knows he’s right before he checks his phone but checks anyway, just to be sure; he sees it in the sunlight filtering identically through the room, the pajamas he’s wearing despite passing out in winter clothes. There’s no doubt. 

Time loops don’t happen to people, but neither do Personas, and neither does any of this. Akechi grimaces and flings an arm over his face to block the light. 

Everything about this is absurd. But it’s no more absurd than being trapped in this... world of pathetic idiots. The day’s reset again, has it? That can’t be a fluke -- there’s a reason this is happening. Might it be to fix whatever’s wrong with Ren? 

Well, of course. The thought has the strangely self-confirming nature of a cryptic crossword clue. Someone, or something, has given him the chance to fix Ren’s decision. Ren’s _betrayal_. Akechi lets out a soft hiss of breath and allows himself to briefly feel… something. 

For all Ren’s mystery, he’s still got certain known qualities. Obnoxiousness, for example. A tendency to banter. In Akechi’s mind, the foremost of these qualities has always been _conviction._ Ren holds fast to his ideals. Someone like that, making a deal like this? 

Akechi feels like he’s missing something. Something big.

He’ll just have to figure out what it is. On his own, of course. He’s never had teammates and he’s not about to start.

  
  


-

  
  


Perhaps the simplest plan is to tell the truth. 

  
  


_Akechi: Can you meet me outside of class as soon as you’re free? It’s urgent._

_Ren: whoa, what?_

_Ren: sure, ig_

  
  


Not the whole truth. That seems promising, from the perspective of breaking the timeline to pieces. But it also seems likely to drive Ren to bargain with Maruki. Stupid, stupid Joker with his teammates and his accursed unwillingness to leave anyone behind. 

So maybe just a taste. Ren meets him in Shibuya, at the diner. It’s as awkward as he’s expecting. They have a very silent lunch during which Ren’s eyes examine Akechi and Akechi examines his nails. When Ren asks how he’s feeling about tomorrow’s infiltration, though, he can’t hold it in. “Don’t listen to Maruki, no matter _what_.”

“What?” says Ren. 

A total non-sequitur, plus Akechi’s barely touched his curry set. Even someone like Ren would find it suspicious. Whatever. Suspect away _,_ Joker. 

“I… okay?” Ren says. “Where is this coming from?” 

“No matter what he uses as a bargaining chip. Even if it’s -- “ oh, he’s much too obvious -- “someone’s life.”

Ren stops in his tracks. “Are you trying to tell me something?” Even someone like Sakamoto could have figured that much, but Ren’s still talking, improbably. “That’s not funny. Don’t joke about that, Akechi.” 

And had his voice _splintered_ a little, at the end?

Fine, then. He sees this isn’t something he can bring up. Because Ren would die to save any of his friends without a thought, hm? 

Pathetic. 

  
  


-

_We’re taking the offer,_ Ren says once more, and this time Akechi doesn’t bother responding, just wordlessly leaves the cafe, door jingling behind him, Ren at a loss. 

Is it really possible to change this outcome in a day?

-

  
  


Akechi gets his answer when the next day is the 2nd again: the 2nd of _January._

He likes to think himself thorough, but he’d never considered the prospect of being sent back further than a day. It reveals a new world of possibilities, each less certain than the last. If he’s been sent back here, how much of the month will he have to relive? Might he be sent back to any day in January, then? Or further still? 

Flinging open the blinds confirms the situation. It’s barely January, the filmy rainbow distortion that corrodes reality thoroughly by the Day of Fates just a spattering at the edge of the sky. This world’s almost real. Akechi can feel it, has felt it since the minute he woke up, practically sparking with energy. He feels so damn _alive --_

Best not to dwell on it. 

This is the day he meets Ren at Leblanc. So he does. Today Akechi doesn’t bother swapping pleasantries with Sakura-san: he’s here for a reason. The reason comes downstairs now, in a turtleneck and grey winter coat, hair a predictable mess. Ren always looks like this. Someone could teach him how to present himself. 

“Hey,” Sakura says. “Grab a seat.”

Already something’s wrong. The hesitation, the suspicion in his movements Akechi saw before and had expected to see -- none of it’s there. Ren looks perfectly relaxed, despite the cat-youth and dead woman behind him laughing over breakfast. He could be pretending, but that’s not it either. Akechi grits his teeth, swings the door open, and runs through his little script on auto-play; Ren follows him out obligingly, like a sheep. 

Even when he whirls on Ren in the laundromat there’s no trace of awareness. Ren just blinks up at him slowly, through glassy eyes, as washing machines thrum pleasantly around them and something horrible twists through Akechi’s ribcage. Not funny, Joker. Not funny at all.

“Is something wrong?” Ren says. “Weird for you to call me here like this.”

His implicit understanding of the situation they’ve been thrust into together has vanished. Replaced by what, exactly, Akechi isn’t sure. This Ren is looking at him with an odd haze in his eyes and an expression on his face Akechi has never seen before. “What’s wrong, Goro?” 

Akechi gapes. 

Then he moves. On sheer instinct he’s leapt forward, leapt forward _wildly_ and -- 

_Slap!_

His stomach roils. Ren’s head lolls to the side. That’s got to hurt. Not enough, Akechi thinks, nails digging into the collar of Ren’s jacket. It should hurt more. Ren does not get to do this. He’ll slap him again and again if he has to. Make him bleed. Make him see reason --

Had this always happened, on January 2nd? He doesn’t think so. What had happened instead...? 

It doesn’t matter. It’s happening now. Ren blinks up at him, dazed, unseeing. Adjusts his glasses, focuses his eyes. Then the strange light flickers out of them, and Ren says slowly, quietly: “Hey, Akechi.” 

  
  


-

He never goes back to January 2nd after that, which is a relief. Every Ren he meets after that is cognizant of the situation, willing to play sidekick on their makeshift detective show. Though every Ren he meets after that takes the offer, too, which isn’t amazing.

Akechi’s starting to understand the rules of the game. Hit 2/2 and get sent back a week, or three, or anything in between. Experience a couple clumps of normalcy. Fuck up. Get sent somewhere else. Retry. January sixth-seventh-eighth, tenth-eleventh-twelfth; fourteenth, twelfth, fourteenth again. 

Are they having _fun_ , whoever’s yanking him around in time like a dog on a leash?

Fine by him. He’s just grateful for the chance to keep Ren from fucking up. The dusty ceiling of his room stares down at him, unconcerned. _Get it together, Joker._

  
  


-

  
  


The days blend together, some more than others. 

It becomes impossible to tell the jazz club nights apart, for example. Not because they talk about the same thing every time (they don't); they just spend that much time there. Akechi takes to logging the visits diligently, in a small black notebook he makes sure Ren never finds, until one particularly bad timeskip undoes even the purchase of the book. Then he gives up. 

He’s given up on a lot these days. His appearance, for example. He hasn’t got any television appearances to dress up for (Maruki gets _some_ things right) and, more importantly, he’s out of patience _._ So: unkempt hair, unironed shirt, inside-out sweater-vest. It’s to the point where Ren actually comments on it. 

"You look different," he says, on January 18th, or some variation of it. This is Akechi’s eighth consecutive evening at the jazz club, though Ren remembers at most three. 

"Go on," Akechi says.

"You look like a drowned rat," Ren says. And then: "Sorry." The apology is because the irritation is bleeding through his face. He's not hiding much from Ren anymore. "Sorry," says Ren again. His eyes are laughing. "I won’t elaborate next time. Just -- different."

“You look different, too,” Akechi says. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but Ren doesn't hear him -- a Maruki intervention, surely -- as he tips back his throat, finishing off the last drops of his fizzy mocktail. Ren does look different. Less annoying than usual, Akechi decides.

  
  


-

  
  


As the weeks drag on, he makes discoveries. 

There are key events in the loop, for example _._ Things that always happen. On the 12th and 18th, they'll go to the jazz club. On the 25th, Ren will take him to Inokashira Park. A couple of other dates stand out like this, too, but the days in between are the real question. What happens to those?

Seems like they’re filling up with jazz club visits, mostly. The Ren in these timelines seems quite interested in talking to him. Akechi can’t see what’s changed, but he isn’t complaining. Perhaps Ren had been that receptive before, and he simply hadn’t noticed. That seems unlikely, so Akechi takes it as evidence that his plan is working, until he’s jettisoned into that February evening and the air’s knocked from his lungs again.

  
  
  
  


If this loop would stretch back just a little further, he thinks irritably, he would simply kill Maruki in December and leave it at that. Would that be too much to ask?

-

Maybe the jazz club’s the problem. Akechi begins to pointedly suggest other outings. 

On the third January 18th, instead of hearing the singer, he drags Ren past Harmony Alley’s many stalls to the tiny takoyaki stand they’ve been meaning to try. Tonight, at the club, they'd have talked about free will. Akechi brings it up in line for takoyaki instead, because it _is_ bothering him, and because if anyone can take his mind off things consistently it's Ren with his inane takes. 

Ren doesn't let him down. "You could prove it," he says thoughtfully, surveying the menu. Three options, two fixtures. Eight for five hundred yen. He's fidgeting with the collar of his jacket the way he does when he can't decide. "That you’ve got control. Do something Maruki wouldn't have you do. Get the spiciest takoyaki, for example."

Akechi gives him a look. 

Ren snickers and orders the normal takoyaki. He gets what is probably enough for both of them. Akechi doesn't order anything. The smell of hot oil wafts down from the fryer. 

“This reminds me of the school festival,” Ren says. He’s still fiddling with his collar, the back of his neck now an irritated, dusty pink. “Fun times.”

“Fun?” Akechi repeats. 

“Yeah, when you took that takoyaki. Your cheeks were all flushed.” 

“I was there to set you up,” Akechi says, in disbelief. “And I succeeded.”

“You had to run away,” Ren says, almost fondly. “And then we sat there and made fun of you.”

“You’re insane,” says Akechi flatly.

“For hours,” says Ren. 

Even this give-and-take is strangely reminiscent of the school festival. It really does seem long ago. _You're back awfully late._ Akechi exhales; the exhalation condenses, dissolves.

Festival shenanigans. Long evenings at Leblanc. October had been a more innocent time -- a time when he could still sit at that mahogany counter with his pour-over, lingering late into the night with a coffee under Ren’s watchful eyes. Then November had arrived, and taken that with it. 

"Hey," says Ren. His voice washes him open. "Here you go." 

For a brief moment Ren’s face swims before him, bruised and mottled. It twists and vanishes, replaced by today’s Ren, expectant. A piping-hot takoyaki box bobs gently in view. 

Oh? It’s covered in bonito flakes. More than usual. 

“You like bonito, I think,” says Ren. He’s chewing a bite. “Saw you top your bite with it at the festival.”

Akechi doesn’t say anything. He chews very slowly. The takoyaki is fragrant and sizzling, a perfect antidote to the crisp night air. It's nice to share.

  
  


-

Some changes, like takoyaki, Akechi has to force. Others are natural. The first three times Ren invites him to Inokashira Park on the 25th, it’s dismal and overcast. On the fourth invite, though, it's snowing. 

The slightest change, but a natural one. Akechi can’t make sense of it. Usually it snows on the 26th, and again on the 30th. On this go-around snow’s snuck up on him today, entirely unexpected. Had tomorrow’s snow been displaced, or was today’s weather always on the precipice of snow? Did a change this size signify anything different? 

In a moment of unfathomable stupidity he verbalizes some of this to Ren, who looks at him like he's grown two heads, but doesn't understand the implications. And how could he. "It's like you to check the forecast that far ahead," he says instead, and Akechi snorts without correcting him. They sit side by side on the empty park bench, watching magpies flutter through snow. 

Ren is feeding them bread crusts. 

"I brought some for you," he says, fishing them from his sleeves like the world's worst magician. Akechi tries for a while. When Ren starts wondering out loud what the magpies think of Maruki’s world, though, he throws the bread in a drift. 

They always spend this day strolling around Inokashira aimlessly, talking about nothing. Even that aimlessness has a different feel today, though. Perhaps it’s just sensory. Their footsteps crunch through the scant inch of snow blanketing the landscape. Little crow feet trace patterns on the path.

At length Ren tires of walking and finds another bench to while away time on, one with fewer magpies. They chat there, too. At five in the afternoon Akechi makes his excuses and gets up, dusting the snow from his fitted coat. This is when Ren has to go, historically speaking, and he can take a hint. 

Ren catches his hand. “Wait,” he says. 

Akechi looks down at his hand. It’s quite cold, even through the glove. Ren isn’t wearing gloves. His hand is inexplicably warm.

“What do you want,” Akechi says, instead of saying _you’re warm_.

“This is fun,” Ren says. His breath comes out in little puffs of air. His cheeks are rosy. “Don’t go just yet.” 

Another difference. Akechi considers several options. Some are more interesting than others. He picks the least interesting one. “Okay.”

  
  


-

  
  


Drizzling today; pouring before. 

"Help me get lunch for Sumire," Ren says, jauntily angled under a transparent umbrella with a nick in it that's going to widen as the day goes on. With the lighter rain, though, it shouldn't pose a problem. Akechi hums approvingly at his own deduction and slides under the umbrella. Ren's eyes widen. 

"What," Akechi demands.

"Nothing, just... I didn't think you would do that." 

Ren doesn't elaborate. Maybe Akechi hadn’t done that the last time around. How should he know?

"Perhaps I've had enough of rain," Akechi says.

It seems enough. They set off at a brisk walk for the Aoyama farmer's market. The sidewalks are blissfully uncrowded due to the overcast sky and spritzes of rain. No doubt variety is required, even in this world. Or perhaps not even Maruki can change the weather. Comfort in that thought, there. 

At the market he watches Ren pick his way through aisles of cabbage and yams with undisguised disinterest. If he’s fetching Yoshizawa lunch, he should really stop by the food trucks. At least he’s having fun. Whatever. Akechi doesn't give a shit until he realizes Ren’s plan.

"Are you making her a bento," he says, incredulously, because he _is_.

Ren flashes a grin. "What if I am?"

There's a lot Akechi could say to this, such as _just make her your curry, idiot, it's professional-grade,_ or _don’t you have Maruki to prepare for,_ or _you'd need to make at least four to be useful for Yoshizawa._

But he restrains himself. At first, anyway. At the register he can no longer refrain from pointing out how ridiculous the whole thing is, and Ren disagrees loudly, and the poor employee's forced to overhear them bicker while ringing up daikon and sweet potato and everything else Ren's thrown in his bag. Good thing Maruki's hard at work because any real person would have kicked them out of the market. 

"Would you like one?" Ren says, serenely, as they weave their way away from the market back into Tokyo's anonymous winding streets. Everything smells like rain. "I can make you a bento. If you'd like."

"Absolutely not," Akechi snaps. "Do you really think I'd like that?"

"You would, though. I can see it. It's on your face."

Oh, this is unbearable. "Are you always this _pathetically blatant_ when you --" 

"When I what?" says Ren. A high flush is creeping under his glasses. He's grinning like a loon. 

Akechi comes to a halt. "I'll see you,” he hisses, “at the jazz club."

Ren watches him go. When Akechi sees him later, at the jazz club, he makes sure to step on his foot under the table.

  
  


-  
  


It's not enough, though, to alter a couple weather patterns and call it a day. He finds this out the hard way, too.

  
-

  
  


So maybe talking about Ren’s feelings isn’t going to work. Reasonable enough. Akechi needs a new plan.

He hasn’t got one. Not only has he not got one, he hasn’t got the energy to _try_ for one. The him of October would find it laughable. He’d probably say something like: _What’s the matter? Scared of a little recursion?_

Yes, actually. Akechi just wants a break. He’s sick of this loop and he’s sick of jazz. To lose himself in sensation would bring the cleanest joy. Now that’s an emotion he hasn’t felt in weeks.

“Hey,” says Ren. “You alright?” 

Akechi glares at him from across the table. 

“You look like a drowned rat,” says Ren.

_Of course I do,_ he thinks irritably, nonsensically _. It’s the 18th._

Tonight they’re going to talk about… what? Ethics, maybe. Consequentialism, again. It would be horrible if it weren’t Ren. Every conversation manages to be different, against all odds, against everything imposed by whatever this cyclical time structure is. 

It’s astonishing. Every other interaction he has is the same. The Phantom Thieves say the same things in chat every day. Akechi has their conversations memorized word for word, the way one might remember dialog from a dog-eared children’s book. 

But he hasn’t memorized the evenings with Ren, because there’s nothing to memorize. Ren never bores him, even now. Not when he gazes at him from across this table, his eyes dancing, searching.

How many times now has he thought about it? Standing up abruptly and leading him outside. Finding an alleyway and pushing him down. Those soft eyes full of shock. He wouldn’t be gentle. He’d take, and take, and _take_. Ren would like it. He can’t say how he knows, but he knows. 

It isn’t the answer. It can’t be. But how many times can he resist the temptation? 

-

  
  
Thirteen, it turns out. On his thirteenth run through this night it’s too much. It’s closing time, and Ren is saying something Akechi can’t hear over the awful static of his thoughts, getting up and tossing on that gray woolen jacket of his. Then he taps him lightly on the shoulder. Akechi turns on instinct and stops at the sight: soft grey eyes searching his face, concerned and very close.

“You look different,” Ren says, hoarsely. 

He does. Akechi feels the string between them; reaches; tugs. 

…

Nights of tangled limbs and whispers, warm breaths and peppered kisses, flashing by like calendar pages.

...

  
  
...  
  
  


That wasn’t the answer? Well, of course it wasn’t. 

Worse, now. Worse than ever before, to hear those words from your -- not a _lover,_ mind. A friend with benefits. Hardly a benefit to be lanced like this, through the heart. Taking the offer even now, Joker? Even after my hands on you in the dark? 

It’s almost enough to make him smile. He’d thought only himself so heartless.

“You look different,” Ren says, hoarsely. Akechi thinks, carefully, of nothing. He gets up. “I should get going.” 

Ren watches him leave.

At least one thing’s clear. It was never going to work, this plan of talking to Ren until his psyche magically fixed itself. It sounds even more pathetic when phrased that way.

  
  
  


-

  
  


Akechi stands at the gates of Shujin Academy once more, phone in hand, utterly exhausted, and thinks. Time to befriend a Phantom Thief now, is it? 

He has no idea which one to choose. Several of them are off-limits. Futaba Sakura and Haru Okumura won’t want to spend a second with him. Which leaves… Makoto Niijima, Yusuke Kitagawa, Ryuji Sakamoto and Ann Takamaki. And Yoshizawa-san, he supposes. The cat doesn’t count. 

Akechi considers. And considers some more. 

The thought of spending time with any of these people is beyond aggravating. 

He doesn’t know how Ren does it. They’re so hopelessly _juvenile_ in their thoughts and manners and expressions. Ren somehow manages to live in both worlds, to relate to these people and their lives, while also actually being a person of significance, someone who means something. But. Akechi frowns. There _are_ things Ren knows that he doesn’t. Things that, in all probability, he’s learned from the other… Phantom Thieves. 

To understand Ren better, it’s vital that he talk to them, however briefly. 

“‘Sup, dude?” says a cheerful voice. “You look down.” 

Akechi looks up. It’s Ryuji Sakamoto. 

He’s not one to deny an opportunity when he sees one. Ryuji will do. Akechi smooths his face into a pleasant expression, inhales, and says mildly: “Ah, Sakamoto-kun.” 

“Cut the crap, Akechi,” Ryuji says. 

This is not an eventuality Akechi has prepared for. He has no idea how to deal with the situation. So he does. His face slackens utterly. He stares at Ryuji blankly.

“ _Fine_ ,” he says, wondering if this is really going to work.

Ryuji _claps him on the back_. 

“Lookin’ better already,” he says. His smile seems... genuine, impossibly. Akechi does not think he could make this sort of expression in Ryuji’s shoes. “So, whatcha doin’? You going somewhere? Seeing someone?”

Akechi opens his mouth. 

“Right, you don’t have any friends,” Ryuji says. 

Akechi closes his mouth. Breathes. Breathes again. He can do this. 

“If I did, I certainly would,” he says smoothly. “But you’re right. I don’t. I suppose all I’ve got left in this world are…”

_The Phantom Thieves,_ he leaves hanging in the air unsaid, because suddenly his throat has seized at the sheer patheticness of the admission. That came out more maudlin than he was expecting. Christ, next time around he is definitely not going to say that.

Ryuji does not address the uncomfortable pause. He doesn’t even notice. Instead he throws an arm around Akechi’s shoulder like it’s nothing -- _who_ has laid hands on him like this last? -- and says, still cheerful: “Wanna train?” 

“What?” 

“You know! Like, train. At the gym.” Ryuji’s already stretching. That’s right -- he’s a runner. Kamoshida disbanded his team. Akechi remembers that now, along with all the other evidence collected in pursuit of framing Ren and his friends. Memories. “Gotta get in some good cardio to be ready for the Palace. Weights, too. But...” Ryuji pauses, giving him the once over. He makes his assessment with finality. “Something tells me you don’t exercise much, huh, Akechi?”

Akechi closes his eyes and counts to five. He does _not_ say to Ryuji that he did not execute certain Metaverse _operations_ by being out of shape. When he opens them he says instead, through gritted teeth: “I often cycle.” 

“Whoa!” Ryuji says. “Damn, that’s cool. Cooler than I’d expect from you.”

This conversation is so absurd as to defy belief. It resembles his conversations with Ren in no way, shape or form. Ryuji is truly _different_ , Akechi thinks. He cannot predict his actions at all. Talking to him is so nonsensical he would never ordinarily enjoy it, but… 

Well. It’s obviously due to the circumstances, but after so many straight days talking to Ren, it’s actually refreshing.

  
  


-

  
  


“Holy _shit,_ Akechi,” Ryuji gasps. 

“What,” Akechi says. 

Or tries to say. In all honesty, he’s at his limits. It takes a lot of effort to _say_ instead of to gurgle. Sakamoto’s fast. Cycling isn’t the same as running, not at all, but through a combination of willpower and spite he’d managed to mostly keep up with Ryuji’s pace. 

“Damn,” Ryuji says. He’s winded. They both are. “Guess I had you pegged wrong.”

“What is that supposed to mean,” Akechi manages. 

“Uh,” says Ryuji. Wipes sweat off his face with a towel he’s fished out of his bag. He’s skidded Akechi one, too, down the bench, but neither towel or bench is exactly clean _._ Akechi lets it sit there. “Like, I didn’t think you ran, so I was honestly expecting to kick your ass. But also, I mean, when you went and got me water. That was almost… nice of you?”

“I was…. already getting water,” Akechi says. “There was no inconvenience to me.” 

“Okay, yeah, but like --” Ryuji’s floundering. “I don’t know, just wasn’t expectin’ you to do something… nice? Or anything for me, really. I mean, even though Ren says you’re not so bad, honestly, I just assumed you kinda… were, you know? It’s not like you ever talked to us, so I wouldn’t really know...”

A strange feeling is coming over Akechi now, trickling down his back. Ryuji Sakamoto… the boy he’s always considered an idiot foil to Ren, a sort of comic relief… he’s not exactly unperceptive. 

He wrote him off, Akechi realizes.

“Uh, so yeah, I didn’t have a point there,” Ryuji says, and Akechi almost writes him off again. He collects himself enough to ask what he’s thinking instead: “Why did you invite me to the gym, then?” When Ryuji doesn’t answer immediately, he presses on. Ah, but of course. “I don’t suppose it was... pity?”

_“Pity?_ Nah, dude. I don’t pity you.” Ryuji’s incredulous. _Good,_ Akechi thinks, _you’re worth a million Marukis._ “Man.” He’s staring up at the sky now, thinking hard as he does. “I guess because Ren talks about you all the time, and I kinda wanted to know why he likes you so much.”

Akechi’s tongue hangs heavy in his mouth.  
  
“He doesn’t,” he says, once he regains the use of it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Eh?” says Ryuji.

“I tried to kill him,” Akechi says. “In case you’d forgotten.” How does it need explaining? This is ridiculous. This isn’t even the person who needs to hear this. This is --

“Yeah, but you didn’t,” Ryuji says serenely. He’s stretching now, hopping around precariously on one foot in a completely superfluous way. Why can’t he pick a different stretch? “Never stood a chance.” 

“I stood _some_ chance,” Akechi mutters quietly into his towel.

“So it’s fine,” Ryuji says. “No harm, no foul. I mean, if you’d offed him, we probably wouldn’t be hanging out right now, right?” 

“You’d be on the track team,” Akechi says, “and he’d probably be here.”

A deafening silence follows. Above them, the vast blue sky swims.

Akechi should have known better. He’d said it thoughtlessly, without consideration, because something about _Ryuji Sakamoto,_ of all people, had put him at ease. And so he had been himself, and it had proved a mistake once more, because saying something so morbid so flippantly would ruin anyone’s mood. 

“I’m sorry,” Akechi says, because he is. “I overstepped.” 

Ryuji shakes his head. 

“Whatcha apologizing for? You’re right. I mean, kinda effed, but right.” Another long silence passes. Then: “But it wouldn’t be real, dude. Would it?”

“No,” Akechi says. “It wouldn’t.”

“Yeah.” Ryuji looks so peaceful. It’s easy to imagine him sitting and laughing here with some faceless track team. Anyone but Akechi. “It’s funny. You’re… actually kinda like him.” 

“What,” says Akechi, in disbelief. “How.”

“I don’t know. The way you phrased that was just so…” Ryuji chuckles. He means it? That’s absurd. “It kinda helped me see a new perspective on things? I think.” 

“I think you helped yourself see that perspective,” Akechi says bluntly. “There’s no need to credit me.”

A lone bird circles above them in the sky, caws once, and wheels away. 

“Hey… you’re not that bad, Akechi,” says Ryuji.

Akechi doesn’t respond. He looks at his hands. In his mind, Loki rattles. 

  
  
  
-  
  
  
  


Ryuji invites him to the gym again. It’s not unpleasant. The mindlessness of physical exertion is exactly what Akechi needs right now. It doesn’t last long, though. On the fourth day, on the jog there, they run into -- 

“Ryuji?” inquires the voice behind them, wondering and familiar. “And… Akechi, with you?”

“Yeah,” Ryuji says, grinning widely. “Pretty weird, huh? This guy’s actually pretty fast. We’re runnin’ buddies now.”

The information doesn’t seem to faze Yusuke at all. Although it’s possible he just didn’t hear it. Out of all the Thieves, he’s certainly the one most in his own head. 

“Kitagawa-kun,” Akechi greets cautiously. “Where are you headed?”

Yusuke’s eyes flicker between the two of them. Akechi’s eyes flicker, too, to the sketchbook in his hands.

“I was hoping to figure that out myself,” Yusuke says, almost to himself. He looks lost. “Even in these times the urge to paint strikes me. To capture the strange beauty of these times. But I’m unsure what subject captures it best.”

“Yeah, that’s like you, all right,” Ryuji says.

Yusuke Kitagawa had actually been Akechi’s first choice for a Phantom Thief to strategically befriend, or pretend to. From his research and from their interactions, on certain metrics, he seems like the least insufferable one. Akechi holds artists in a certain regard, though visual art’s not his area of expertise. 

There’s never been an opportunity to solicit his company before. But now -- 

“Perhaps I could assist you, Kitagawa-kun,” Akechi says, all practiced charm once more. 

“What?” says Ryuji. “Dude, just call him Yusuke.”

“Ryuji is correct,” says Yusuke, who inclines his head slightly. “Yusuke would be preferable.”

What _is_ it with these fools? Do they think they’re his friends? “My apologies -- Yusuke, then.” 

“Your assistance… would not be undesirable,” says Yusuke thoughtfully. “In fact, it might be exactly what I need to break out of this slump.”

“Lame,” Ryuji says, and jogs away from the pair of them. 

  
  
  
  
  


They wind up at the aquarium, on Akechi’s suggestion, where they take the winding walkway through various aquatic chambers to the highest floor. Yusuke is enthralled with the myriad sea creatures they pass. A giant stingray floats past, diffident. Jellyfish, too, drift through the glass around them, glimmering with light. “What a wonderful sight,” he murmurs. “It’s almost magical.” 

It’s just bioluminescence, Akechi doesn’t say. Instead he bites his tongue and contents himself with reading the description of Tohoku’s crabs.

This afternoon is not unlike the one he spent here long ago, and Akechi can’t help but contrast the company. Compared to Ren, Yusuke has substantially less common sense. He keeps obstructing traffic because he’s framing the compositions through his fingers. It would be embarrassing if it weren’t so earnest. They make their way through the exhibits at an unsurprisingly glacial pace; by the time they make it to the garden eels, the aquarium is closing. 

“What did you think?” Akechi says, as Yusuke puts the final touches on a skillfully-rendered dorsal fin.

“I am in your debt,” Yusuke says. “This was a wonderful experience. However...” He’s looking at his sketchbook now, the slightest of frowns on his face. “I’m not sure it was quite what I was looking for, in terms of artistic inspiration.”

Akechi remembers what Yusuke said earlier: _capturing the beauty of this strange world_. Then he looks at his sketchbook, full of coral and fish.  
  
“I can see that.” 

“Actually --” Yusuke is looking at him now, he notices, rather fiercely. “If you don’t mind, could you -- ?” 

Akechi’s astonished. “You’re going to draw _me?”_

“You are not displeasing to the eye,” Yusuke says simply, as if stating a fact. “Moreover, I feel that this concept may unlock a raw potential… I’d like to try it, if you will.”

None of that makes sense, but Akechi will admit he’s slightly curious about the _raw potential_ Yusuke sees.

“If you would --” Yusuke motions him over, positions him just so. “Yes, like that!” 

“You want me to stand here,” Akechi says, cautiously, “like this, and… look into the glass?”

“Precisely,” Yusuke says. Then he whips out the sketchbook and starts drawing in earnest, and Akechi… well. Akechi doesn’t interrupt him. 

Instead he presses his forehead into the glass, cool and blue.

How strange to have time to think here. Little tropical fish drift by him like strange jewels, occasionally nosing up to him inquisitively through the glass. He lets his fingers idly trace their paths. He thinks of Ren, and whether anything’s changed in this timeline, and whether he remembers their day spent together here as clearly as Akechi does.

The second of February is inexorably approaching, once more, in this timeline. Akechi thinks of that, too. He does not think beyond. 

  
  
  


-

  
  
  


“If only we had more time,” Yusuke says, with regret, as they walk briskly toward Shinagawa station. “I would love to explore this place more thoroughly.”

“It’s difficult to see in a single visit,” Akechi says. Is Yusuke aware it’s got eight floors? 

“True,” says Yusuke. “I would like it if you returned with me. I’m sure you, too, wish to learn more about the life-cycles of eels.” 

Akechi casts for another topic. Reels. “What did you end up drawing?” 

“Hm?” says Yusuke. “Oh -- yes.” He flips through the pages of his sketchbook deftly. He knows them well. “Would you like to see?” 

Akechi looks.

He sees himself then, as Yusuke saw him. Perhaps as Yusuke still sees him. It’s strange. He has never been drawn before, to his knowledge, and certainly not drawn so intimately. Yusuke is no mere draftsman: his linework has sentimentality, in a way. It’s surprising to Akechi. How can a handful of lines convey such depth of feeling?

And does he really look like this? Pale and wanting, searching his reflection in that glass?

“I confess I am curious what you think,” says Yusuke. “Particularly of my… addition.” 

What addition, he starts to say, before -- oh, he sees it now. Akechi swallows in surprise. That’s -- 

“Is that _Ren?_ ”

“Correct,” Yusuke says. He’s smiling. “Something in your posture reminded me of him… and as I continued to draw, I could not help but consider your duality. You and he are opposites of a sort, are you not? And yet complementary... It seemed only fitting to experiment with in this composition.”

Ren’s reflection stares back at him. Yusuke -- just a few streaks of charcoal were enough for him to convey this: Akechi staring, gloved hand on glass; Ren waiting, fingers pressed against his own; the thick pane of glass separating them...

“Do you like it?” says Yusuke.

Akechi searches for his voice. Finds it. What he means to say is _yes_. What comes out is different. Yusuke’s eyes shine with amusement. “I would be honored,” he says, and tears it out of the sketchbook ever so gently, rolling it shut and handing it over to Akechi like a baton. “Show him, will you?”

  
  
  


-

  
  


It’s not easy to find a chance, though. He and Ren have barely spoken in this timeline. The one chance he gets is from the groupchat:

_  
Yusuke:_ _If anyone is interested, Ren and I intend on meeting in Kichijoji for lunch today._

_Several people are typing…_

_Ryuji: wtf you guys i just ate_

_Makoto: It’s 2:50 PM._

_Ren: is there a problem_

_Makoto: Well… at least you’re eating something._

_Ren: glad you see it my way :)_

_Sumire: I can make it!_

_Akechi: I’m also available. I’ll meet you there._

  
  


  
He loses service on the train. When he emerges from the platform, his phone is buzzing. 

  
  
  


_Ren: something came up actually have fun though!_

_Yusuke: Unfortunately, I am in a similar position to Ren. I hope the two of you enjoy something delicious._

_Sumire: What?!_

_Sumire: Um, but I’m still down to meet if you are, Akechi-san!_

  
  
  


Akechi looks up from his phone slowly. 

  
  
  


_Akechi: Certainly._

_Yusuke: If I may impose, I would enjoy any wagashi you find along the way._

_Yusuke: I’m most partial to red bean jelly._

_Ryuji: dude..._

  
  
  


-

  
  


Yoshizawa doesn’t look, precisely, like she’s “down to meet.” She looks like she cannot shrink any further behind her scarf. She’s chosen the cafe by the darts place, one Akechi has visited dozens of times, though none of those visits took place in bizarro-January. It’s subtly different from how he remembers it. For one, the owner is smiling. But he still recognizes Akechi, which is a plus. Akechi orders the omurice set, Yoshizawa orders an implausible amount of food, and the pair of them instantly lapse into excruciating silence. 

Akechi considers how best to break the ice. With anyone else he’d simply fall back upon his old nauseating charm, but Yoshizawa has seen too much for that to work. How unfortunate. He’ll opt for honesty. “Is… something the matter?” 

“N-no!” Yoshizawa says immediately, pointedly not looking at her phone. 

Of course. Akechi sips his coffee, once. Then he pulls out his phone, screen turned carefully so as not to show her. The chat has new messages.

  
  
  


_Ren: wish i were there_

_Ren: would love to see a ruthless sort of lunch_

  
  
  


Akechi snorts. Yoshizawa… yelps.

“Oh no, you saw it! I -- I promise I wasn’t thinking anything like that, Akechi-san!” 

Akechi rubs his temples. “I don’t care if you were,” he says. “I don’t care what you think of me.”

“Oh,” she says. She’s barely visible behind the scarf. “O-Okay.”

They drink their coffee in renewed silence, interrupted only by the cafe owner swinging by with free castella for the pair of them. Just another manifestation of this rotten world. Akechi passes his piece off to Yoshizawa, who looks like she enjoys it. She thanks the owner profusely when he comes by with the check, which gets them talking about his life story: he and his wife started this cafe together. They’ve got a daughter with whom Yoshizawa would surely get along. His wife’s away on business, but she’d love to meet Yoshizawa when she comes back, he’s sure of it. That castella? Her secret recipe. Akechi listens until he can take it no longer, which isn’t very long.

“Your wife is dead,” he interrupts. “That’s why you started this cafe. You started it in her memory, because she loved coffee and Western food, and you thought it would be a good way to honor her.” 

“Akechi-kun?” says the owner. He looks very confused. 

Akechi scowls. “You told me that the day we met -- the first time I visited, a year ago. You always discount drinks on her birthday. Do you really not remember?” 

The cafe owner looks at him with long slow nothingness on his face. 

“The recipe is hers, though,” Akechi adds thoughtfully. “That much was true.”

The owner... walks away.

“Th-thank you for the meal!” Yoshizawa squeaks.

Akechi doesn’t look at Yoshizawa for a while, so certain is he of the disgust he’ll see on her face. When he does, though, he finds her appraising him with a strange expression. 

“Spit it out,” he says, without patience.

She’s still making the face. “It’s funny. It’s just… you were trying to be nice to him.”

“I’m sorry?” says Akechi. 

“Um, not nice, exactly,” she amends, quickly, seeing his disbelief. “It’s more that… you had his best interests in mind, right? Even if you didn’t really phrase it like...”

“Like _what?”_ he all but snarls. 

“Eep! Um, like…” Yoshizawa is paying too much attention to the crumpled napkin in her lap. 

“What am I supposed to do?” Akechi demands. “Coddle him?”

“No! Um, what you did… I don’t think it was a bad idea,” she says, slowly, looking up at him. “Um, it was a good idea, even, actually!” 

“Glad to earn your approbation, _Yoshizawa-san,”_ he says, with barely-masked annoyance. Yoshizawa shrinks behind her scarf. Then unshrinks. How fascinating. 

Perhaps she’s stronger than she looks. That would explain why Joker likes her.

“Um, also… you can call me Sumire,” the scarf says. “If you want, Akechi-san!”

_That’s_ her response to all this? 

Well then.

“Okay,” Akechi says. “Sumire.” 

  
  
  
  
  


Yoshizawa's -- Sumire's -- company is not unpleasant. Her demeanor approaches refreshing. She ends up telling him quite a bit about the logistics of balancing Japanese gymnastics training with a high school career before noticing the time with a yelp: she’s late to practice. 

"I’ve got to run!" she squeaks, stuffing the barely-wrapped slice of castella in her bag and scrambling into her jacket and scarf. It would look nightmarishly uncoordinated if she weren't a gymnast. As she is, it looks almost deliberate, a pack-and-dance routine. In twenty seconds flat she's out the door, voice carrying faintly down the street: "Thank you for the meal, Akechi-senpai!"

"Senpai?" Akechi echoes, to no one.

He gets up, too, and makes his leave, avoiding the owner as he does. Now he's got time to kill in Kichijoji, a situation he's come to associate with precisely one person. Akechi scowls. He needs to get a hold of himself. He can't hold against Ren what never happened in this timeline, and it's a pathetic deflection of blame besides: he'd wanted it. None of that stops him from sitting under the awning of Penguin Sniper and sulking at his screen until three dots appear, as if by magic.

  
  
  


_Ren: done w/sumi?_

_Ren: i'm free now if you want to hang_

  
  
  


Akechi frowns. Should he respond? 

The dots wriggle.

  
  
  
  


_Ren: miss you_

  
  
  
  


_Akechi: I'm in Kichijoji._

  
  


  
-

  
Some time later they arrive at the jazz club. Tonight’s cocktail is surprisingly acerbic, and not one he remembers from the evening’s previous iterations. Lavender, thyme, something actively terrible. Akechi doesn’t finish his.

Instead he fills Ren in on recent events. If Ren already knows, he doesn’t let on, listening with interest to Akechi’s tales: Ryuji and the gym, Yusuke and the aquarium, Sumire and the miserably awkward lunch. It’s a lot. Various parts of it make him howl with laughter.

“I never imagined I wouldn’t see you all month because you’d spend so much time hanging out with my friends, though,” Ren says now. He wipes his eyes on a sleeve, leaving his glasses slightly askew. A light tap would resettle them onto the bridge of his nose. “Never in a million years. Also, Yusuke said you had something for me.”

Oh. He supposes he does. Akechi fishes it out of his pocket. It’s a bit crumpled, and the pencil slightly smeared, but the effect still stands. He watches Ren’s face very closely as he examines the drawing. Inscrutable as ever. 

“This is great,” Ren says, leaning back in his chair. From its ominous teetering, it’s not meant to be reclined in. “Care to explain?” 

“We were discussing our _duality,”_ Akechi says, with an indifferent motion of his hand. “Yours and mine. And I suppose he wanted to… draw it, or something.” 

Ren, choking on his drink: “ _Duality_?”

“Indeed,” says Akechi. “Your friend is awfully into such… metaphors.”

“Your friend too, now,” says Ren. Akechi doesn’t bother correcting him. “I mean, is he wrong?” His hand rests on the side of his cocktail glass lightly, almost like the picture. “If you think about it, we’re kind of two sides of the same coin, right?” 

“A weighted coin, perhaps,” Akechi says, slowly. “Hopelessly biased towards one side.” 

Ren doesn’t get it. “What side would that be?” 

Akechi hums, not wanting to dignify with a response. After some thought, he takes Ren’s near-finished drink and topples it gently over the table.

“Wow,” Ren says, after cleaning up the purple-stained mess. “That is _not_ like you.”

“It isn’t,” Akechi agrees readily. 

Ren’s looking at him closely. “What gives?” 

“Perhaps I feel like making mistakes,” says Akechi, and hears the ring of truth in it as he does. “It isn’t as if I’ve got much time left.” Ah -- not that part, though, that part wasn’t meant to come out -- 

“I’m not sure what you mean by that,” says Ren, “but I know I don’t like it.” 

Akechi doesn’t answer. At his heels, even now, he senses it: nipping, rattling, swirling.

“Hey, Akechi,” says Ren. “What are you going to do after our deal?”

In previous timelines, Akechi’s responded to this with _I don’t have to tell you. That’s not part of our deal._ In this one, though, he just doesn’t say anything.

“I heard you’ve got a lot of plans. Like running with Ryuji. And seeing Sumire train. Even going to the aquarium with Yusuke -- could have invited me, though.” Ren’s eyes are serious. “You _do_ have plans with me, right? I assume you intend to honor those.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Akechi says coldly. 

Ren flinches. “Right,” he says, voice small. Akechi doesn’t like that, not how he thought he would. “Okay. It’s just that from the way you talk, I kind of get the feeling you’re…” 

He doesn’t complete his own sentence _._ Instead he walks around the table and leans in close, eyes bright and soft. Akechi swallows.

“You look different,” says Ren hoarsely. 

  
  
  
  
  


He can permit himself, he thinks, this indulgence, with Ren’s gaze bearing down on him, questioning, relentless. He can close his eyes and tangle his fingers in Ren’s hair the right way, just once. He can, he _must_ , before he loses everything he knows.

  
  
  
  
  


**-**

February 2nd, for the tenth or twelfth or possibly fifteenth time? He doesn’t count anymore. What had initially seemed so important -- to track, to verify, to know with certainty the passing of these days -- now seems hardly a consideration. All that matters is where the day really goes, or whether it goes at all. He wipes his mouth with the back of his glove, stands, listens, and barges in. 

Maruki again; Ren again; Morgana leaving them alone again, in this timeline where he’s kissed Ren yesterday, a mistake he seems to keep making. 

“What are you going to do?” he says, expecting nothing, until -- 

“I don’t know,” Ren says. He looks stricken. 

Ren has never not known before. He’s always turned to Akechi with strange finality in his eyes: _We’re taking the offer._ But something has changed, in this timeline, here, and -- Akechi presses on. Every word counts, he’s sure of it. He can’t make mistakes, not anymore.

“Nothing has changed. All that matters is stopping Maruki.“

Ren looks away. He doesn’t answer. 

“Your indecision is essentially a betrayal,” Akechi says then, low and quiet, sensing weakness, and Ren flinches. “It’s not indecision.” 

“Oh?” Akechi says. “What could it possibly be?” 

The moment stretches long as Ren’s face flickers. 

“Say it,” Akechi demands.

In the fraction of a second before he opens his mouth, Akechi realizes he’s made another mistake.

“I love you,” Ren says. Face still flickering. There’s no sound. A curtain of silence has fallen between them. “Or I think I do, anyway. And I wanted to see you again. That was my wish.” 

It can’t be.

“I can’t -- it’s because of you, how can you not understand that? I can’t -- I can’t just -- if you’re going to vanish, if I’m responsible for your _life_ \--”

“Don’t fuck with me, _Joker_!” 

He’s grabbed Ren by the collar again, the better to rattle, to shake, to tear the admission that this is a sick joke. This is a mistake because up close, Ren is not lying. His eyes are not lying. Akechi would know. And up close it is so much harder to forget how these eyes have looked at him, last night and so many unreal nights before, searching, pleading. Was this what they pleaded for? 

“I’m not,” says Ren. “I wouldn’t -- it’s the truth, you really can’t tell?” 

The emotion that twists him now, threatening to tear off his skin --

“So _what_ ,” he hisses. Even he’s surprised at how venomous it sounds. “You want to _steal my heart?_ Like one of your _targets?”_ Ren opens his mouth. Akechi won’t let him. “Pathetic even for you, don’t you think?” 

“Do I need to steal it?” says Ren.

Akechi stops.

“What?” he says. 

The last twist of the knife. Ren looks up at him, eyes questioning, luminous. His voice is soft. “Do you really hate me?” 

  
  
  
  


He has every intention of lying but does not.

  
  
  
  
  


Upstairs, in the dark, they fumble. Ren is insistent. He needs this. Akechi thinks: _this is the least I can do._

They move through it together: become familiar to each other from instinct and memory, through slow breaths and soft sounds. The way Ren looks at him, in gentle surrender, is not a mistake. He drinks in the sight he won’t see again; savors every slight motion, loses himself in it and loses himself still, until as he tugs Ren’s shirt down a weak hand stops him.

“Promise me,” Ren says, eyes bright and too-seeing. “That you’ll come back.” 

His touch falters. 

“Please,” Ren says. 

How bitterly funny what you learn about yourself on a deadline. How many lies has he told? Hundreds, perhaps thousands? None of which he remembers. And for some reason he has learned to mind _now,_ or at least mind _once_. Lying to someone he’s lied to countless times, who lies vulnerable before him now, breathing shallow, trapping him in that slow awful gaze that won’t let him go. 

It’s what Ren needs to hear. Akechi swallows. Scrapes his voice up from nowhere, past his heart, up through his lungs. A thousand lies. This one is nothing. 

“I promise,” he says.

  
  


-

  
  


And soon enough he thinks nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this back in june during some kind of akeshu-induced mania, intending it to be part of a larger fic... my writing style has changed a decent bit since then, but i still like it, and if i don't post it today then i definitely never will!  
> happy 2/2 and thanks for reading, it means a lot to me ;_;  
> special thanks to mz for literally allowing akeshu in her dms at all. queen 
> 
> if you enjoyed this you can [like / rt](https://twitter.com/letrasette/status/1356842043398443009)!


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